All posts tagged ‘music programs’

My dad and I have a pastime not common to many father/daughter combos. We call it guitar gawking. It’s a simple process, really. We find a music store that sells guitars. We go there. We stare at guitars, fondle them, compare and scrutinize, note the changes since the original was released. We go from the sweet smelling acoustic room to the wall of electric guitars, sometimes even pressing up against the cases of musical relics with price tags of monumental proportions. See, like baseball and fishing, a love of guitars is something I share with my dad. His support in my musical endeavors shaped me immensely. Gave me confidence. Gave me a voice.

But that isn’t the case with many little girls. I learned my first chords on my dad’s Martin Shenandoah, and rocked out for the first time on his Les Paul. I had choice instruments. But plenty of girls have none at all. Especially not guitars. And if their dads can play, chances are they’re not going to share. In fact, a widely cited statistic is that only 7% of electric guitars sold are purchased by women.

In music, it may be that our perceptions of what’s acceptable for girls and boys really hasn’t come a terribly long way. And it starts young. Take this BBC article from 2008, citing a report by the Institute of Education. At that time, in the UK, boys dominate the “cooler” instruments: 81% of electric and bass guitar players were boys. Girls ranked high with the harp (90%) and the flute (89%). From the BBC article, Julianne Regan of All About Eve recounts her experience growing up in music:

There was no opportunity to learn anything other than traditional orchestral instruments at school and so I muddled along on my own and felt quite isolated as I went to an all-girl school and none of my peers seemed to have any interest in electric guitar… It seemed like a freakish thing for me to be interested in. I was quite popular at school and had a load of friends, but this was just seen as “one of my little quirks”.